So I don’t listen much to this lecture either.
Chapter Twenty
I have Lily’s number now, but I don’t know what to say if I call her. And I don’t even know if she likes me anymore, after what happened between her and James. But I suppose I get an answer to that a couple of days later when I get another invitation from her. She wants to have coffee on Saturday. I think really hard if I should go or not. Actually that’s a lie. I’m obviously going to go. But I genuinely don’t know what to say to her about Fonchem and Lornea Island.
As I cycle down to the coffee shop she told me to meet in, down by the harbor, I wonder if it’s going to be all of them, or just her. If it’s all of them I don’t know how I’m going to say what I need to say. But if it’s just her, then that will be odd, because it’ll be like a date. When I get there, there’s no-one there at all. So I lock up my bike and go inside to wait.
She turns up ten minutes late. Just her, and she’s wearing a kind of pleated skirt thing with a white jumper. She looks – well I guess she looks rich, like the daughter of a family of rich industrialists who make all their money by destroying the environment. But then she does look really beautiful as well.
“Hey Billy, how are you?” She leans down to kiss me on both cheeks, since I don’t get up, and I can smell her perfume. It’s like I’m enveloped in it. She slips in the seat opposite me, and shakes her head.
“Urgh. Hard week. You?”
I stare at her. At her flawless skin, and her clear blue eyes, and her long hair, golden yellow, that falls onto her shoulders.
“Yeah. Me too.” I reply. She gives me a funny look at this, and then the waitress arrives.
“So why did you want to meet?” I ask, when we’ve ordered. Lily gives me a funny look.
“What do you mean?”
“What did you want to talk about?”
“What do you mean what did I want? I wanted to see you.”
I pause. “Why?”
She frowns, putting delicate creases into her forehead. “Are you OK Billy?” She seems to think for a moment and her expression changes. “Is this about James and me?”
I’m surprised by this, so I don’t get a chance to reply before she goes on. “Because that’s complicated…” She fades into silence, as the waitress comes back with our drinks. We both stay silent, even when she’s gone, and Lily tears the corner of a sachet of sugar and pours it slowly into her coffee.
“James and I are very fond of each other. And we’ve known each other for a very long time, but…”
“It’s not about James.” I burst out, cutting in.
She stops, still holding the sugar. Then sets it down. “Oh.” She frowns again. It’s distracting because she has a very pretty frown. Then she takes a deep breath, and I can’t help but be aware of how it makes her chest rise up and down.
“Well, what is it about?”
It’s my turn to hesitate. But with a feeling that this might be the stupidest idea I’ve had in a long time, I pull out a plastic document folder of stuff I printed out at home. I open it up and pull the contents out. I find a photograph of a Lornea Island sea-dragon, and then a map I got off the internet of where Fonchem wants to expand. I put them both down in front of her.
“Your company. Your Dad’s company. You didn’t tell me they were the ones trying to buy up half of Lornea Island.” I’m exaggerating there, quite a lot, but I’m angry.
She picks up the papers and looks at them, and then she looks at me.
“I don’t understand.”
I stab a finger at the map. “There. Fonchem. You’re trying to develop this land here, including the bay, and it’s going to destroy a unique habitat which is used by a species of seahorse that’s endemic to Lornea Island. It’s not found anywhere else.”
She looks again, and as I feed her more papers, she looks at those as well. My posters, an article I printed out, with a photo of her dad, smiling in a suit.
“Oh.” She says. And she bites her lip.
I take a sip of my drink, not able to look Lily in the eyes, while she forms all the papers into a pile and neatens them up.
“So you’ve found out what my family does?” There’s an anger in her eyes that I wasn’t expecting.
“Yes.”
“And you’re angry?”
I take a breath before I answer. “Yes.”
“And of course you yourself, don’t use any chemical products, in your life. You don’t travel by car, or use detergents, or own any electronics?”
“I do. But I don’t see why it’s necessary to destroy wildlife habitats to produce all that stuff.”
She looks away at this. I can see it was a powerful line.
“I’m sure they won’t be destroyed…” She looks back suddenly. “Look, I didn’t know anything about this until you just showed it to me. I wasn’t trying to hide anything from you.”
“But you knew I was into marine biology.” A weird thought occurs to me. “Did you know I was running a campaign to oppose Fonchem buying that land? Is that why you made friends with me. Were you spying?”
“No!” Lily stares at me for a long time, and then she bursts out laughing. “No Billy. I’m not spying on you.” She stops laughing. “I promise. And I seriously doubt your campaign has anyone worried in Dad’s office. It’s not the sort of place… It’s…”
Her face suddenly looks serious again, matching mine. “Look Billy, we get opposition every time we open a site, or change what’s made there, or expand a site, or do anything. It’s a chemical company, that’s just what happens.”
“And you’re OK with that?”
She looks away again. She seems more exasperated this time.
“Well actually no. I’m not.” Suddenly she grabs my hand and pulls it towards her. “Look Billy, I can imagine what you must think of me. The rich-bitch daughter of a billionaire, owner of millions of shares. I have that giant house, and everything gets handed to me on a plate. But I’m not like that.”
I got stuck at the word billionaire. I didn’t realize she was that rich.
“You know what I’m studying?” She asks suddenly, and I have to think to remember.
“International Law.”
“International Environmental Law. There’s a difference. It’s all about the attempts to control pollution and the depletion of natural resources. But not just to fight it, in small scale protests, but find actual solutions that can change the way actual firms operate. Firms like my father’s.
“I don’t have to study anything Billy. I could just go to parties and vacations and not do anything. We have more than enough money for that. But that’s not what I chose. Doesn’t that say something?”
Now I frown. I can feel it on my face. “So you don’t approve of this?” I tap the pile of papers, but my voice sounds uncertain.
She looks at it, she seems frustrated.
“No. Yes, I don’t know! I haven’t… I’d have to study… My point is that I’m not who you fear I am. I’m not just… I don’t know. I have to be a realist, not despite who I am, but because of who I am. But I’m on your side. I’m on your side Billy.” She squeezes my hand, then lets me go.
Suddenly she spins around and starts digging into her bag, which is on the chair next to her. I have the strangest feeling she’s about to give me money, to pay me off. She frowns again as she digs into it. But then she pulls out a card. It’s from Greenpeace.
“Look, I’m a member. I’ve been a member for years. I don’t know about these…” she hunts on the table for the picture of the sea-dragon.
“Seahorses.”
“Right, I don’t know about those, about that case in particular, but I do care about this stuff as well. I really do. In fact that’s why…” she stops, and her eyes meet mine for a second, before she looks away. “I guess it’s why I like you.”
I don’t know how to react to this, and there’s a weird silence.
“What do you mean?”
“What d
o you mean, what do I mean?” She gives me a crooked smile, then looks away again.
“What do you mean why you like me?”
It takes her a long time to answer, and when she does, she just says: “I don’t know.”
Then there’s another silence, which Lily breaks by asking me about my work, and the course, and lots of other questions that don’t really mean anything. And then she has another look at the documents I brought. And we finish our drinks, and I realize she’s going to go soon. And I really don’t want her to.
“What were you saying?” I ask suddenly, when I get the sense she’s getting ready to leave. “When you thought I was angry about James?”
Her face changes at once, and I can see her thinking what to say. But then she shakes her head. “Nothing. I just thought it might have upset you, that’s all. Everything that’s going on with me and James.”
I want to ask her what is going on with her and James. But something in her face stops me. And then she gets up, and tells me she has to go. And before I can say anything else she’s given me a hug and told me she’ll see me soon, and she’s gone.
And it’s only then that I realize it’s this – her and James, and where I might fit in – that worries and confuses me most about all this. More than the environmental angle. More than the Lornea Island sea-dragons.
Chapter Twenty-One
The next time Lily calls she asks if I want to come out to dinner. But before I can reply she goes on, telling me it’s Oscar’s birthday, so they all want to do something nice. But from the way she says it, so quickly, I can tell she was worried that maybe I would think she meant just her and me again, like on a proper date. And then maybe because of that I felt the need to show her I wasn’t thinking that, and also I do have other plans sometimes, other friends. Well – it all makes me do something a little bit silly.
“Actually I can’t on Thursday.” I say instead. “I’m seeing my friend. Amber.” Obviously this isn’t true, I haven’t seen Amber for weeks.
“Oh.” Lily replies, and then I sense she’s going to say that never mind, perhaps we can do it another time, or something like that, and I panic right away that maybe there won’t be another time – that I’ll never hear from her again – so I go on, without thinking.
“But maybe I could bring her along. She’s really fun.”
Then there’s a long pause, when I totally regret what I’ve just said, before Lily replies.
“Sure. Of course Billy. Of course you can bring your friend along.” She just gently stresses the word friend, so that it sounds kinda weird, and I don’t quite know what she means by it.
“I’ll let the restaurant know.”
So then I have a bit of a problem, since now I have to invite Amber to meet Lily and the others, and I haven’t even told her about them. But it’s not a massive problem. This is Amber we’re talking about, she’s my oldest friend, and we’ve been through a lot together, so going out to a restaurant isn’t exactly going to be that difficult. So I think for a bit, and then I ring her and ask what she’s doing on Thursday night. And while I do I get the idea that maybe she’ll be busy, and I’ll be able to say to Lily and the others that she wasn’t able to come after all, and everything will just be easier that way. But then Amber says the only plans she had was dying her hair that night – which is just her funny way of saying she isn’t busy. So then I ask if she wants to come out with me and my friends. And I can tell she’s really touched by the idea.
So annoyingly, it’s all arranged.
When Thursday evening comes around I cycle round to Amber’s apartment. I figure it’s best if we turn up together, so I can maybe warn her a bit about them. As I ring her doorbell I worry that Amber might have gone a bit too alternative in her dress, but she doesn’t look too bad, in black jeans and a black t-shirt, with the name of one of the punk bands she likes on it. Her orange hair has gone too, turned back to a kind of dark blue/purple hue, which is the color I think suits her best.
“Billy!” She gives me a hug. “I’ll just be five minutes. Dump your bike in the hallway. It’ll be safer there.”
She turns and disappears into one of the rooms – I’ve not actually been to her apartment before, and I guess she realizes this too as she shouts out to me from out of sight.
“Help yourself to a poke around. My housemates aren’t in.”
So I do, and her place is quite nice. Cozy, and much more like a home than where I’m living, although the whole apartment is probably smaller than the massive kitchen in Lily’s house.
“So Billy, you’re finally going to introduce me to your college friends huh?” I’ve finished looking around, and am back in the hallway, outside her room, but the door’s open and I can see her at a mirror, putting on purple eyeshadow. I think it’s called eyeshadow, either way, there’s rather a lot of it.
“About time too!”
“Yeah. I just wanted to say something about that…” I begin, not really sure what I need to say here. “They’re, they’re quite into their culture stuff, sometimes.” But maybe she can’t hear me, she does have the radio on in the background.
“Is that Guy guy going to be there?” Amber interrupts me. “Get it? Guy guy? If so don’t sit me next to him, OK?”
I tell her not to worry about that, and suggest hopefully that we should walk to the restaurant, so I get a chance to explain about them, but really I’m just delaying things, and when Amber sees where it is, she tells me I’m crazy and calls an Uber. And five minutes later we arrive outside a big glass-fronted restaurant which looks very expensive. Amber gives me a look before we go in, like this wasn’t what she was expecting for a student night out. And I just know this isn’t going to go that well.
Inside there’s a man waiting at a kind of podium thing. He looks very well dressed, and he smiles at us a little bit confused maybe, at the way Amber is dressed. I only know what he wants because I’ve seen it on TV, so I explain, a little bit hesitantly maybe, that we’re here to eat with Lillian Bellafonte. I’m only a bit surprised when he nods his head smartly and asks us to come with him. But Amber gives me a look and mouths what the fuck..? as we follow him. We go past lots of tables of diners, all sitting quietly and eating tiny amounts of food off huge plates. Mostly they’re dressed in proper suits and dresses, I notice, while piano music plays quietly in the background. I’m kind of relieved when we get to the others, they’re at a table tucked away a bit near the back of the restaurant, it’s kind of cut off by a giant fish tank, brightly illuminated, and filled with fish, freshwater fish, like guppies, tetras and zebrafish. The others are dressed normally, or normal for Lily and her friends at least.
“Billy!” Lily stands up. She’s wearing blue jeans and another white wool sweater. “And you must be…”
“Amber.” Amber says, she smiles and I think she’s expecting Lily to do the same, but she doesn’t, or not really. Then Lily introduces the others, but she does so a bit quickly and half-heartedly, and James and Oscar barely stop talking to say hello. Then we sit down, the way the table is laid out, it’s me and Amber at one end, kind of away from the others.
“We asked for this table,” Lily leans in to say to me, “because of the fish.” She gives me a smile, but then turns back to James, who seems to be half way through a story. I don’t really follow what it’s about, but I get enough to hear it involves someone suing someone else about some breach of contract. The others seem glued though, and when he gets to the punchline they all laugh loudly, all except Amber and me. Then there’s a silence, and it’s only really broken when James and Oscar pick up their menus, and start discussing what to eat. I glance at Amber, who’s staring at me quizzically, and pick up my menu too.
The first thing I notice is the prices. I guess that’s just a habit, but here they all look like typos, there’s nothing for less than a hundred dollars, and the descriptions of the food is all in French, or most of it. James and Oscar start discussing, loudly, what’s best – and it’s all about th
e last time they had it, or when they ate that other thing in Paris, or that seafood restaurant in Florence, and it goes on for ages. Finally I hear Eric saying firmly that he’s not hungry enough for a starter, so he’s just going to have the turbot, and he fixes me with a look. When I find it on the menu, it’s the cheapest thing, so I say I’ll have it too. Amber leans in to whisper to me.
“What the actual fuck Billy? These are your friends?”
I don’t know what to say, so I don’t say much in reply. And when the waitress comes – she looks the most normal person here – Amber tells her she’ll have the turbot too.
It gets a bit better after that. The table kind of splits in two. James, Oscar and Jennifer mostly talk amongst themselves – I don’t hear what they’re saying, but it sounds as though they’re still re-living their holiday in Europe the other year. And then at my end Eric seems to do his best to make Amber feel welcome. At least, he actually talks to her. Lily is mostly silent. She seems torn between the two groups. But even Eric isn’t his usual entertaining self, and plenty of times we end up silent at our end of the table, and just sort of passengers, listening to James and Oscar banter and bicker between themselves over details of their trip that we didn’t go on.
“So Lily, what are you studying?” Amber asks suddenly, surprising me. I thought we’d settled into not talking at all.
“Oh,” Lily looks startled. “Law.” She replies. “And you? Err… Billy tells me…” She doesn’t finish what she’s saying, probably because I haven’t said much about her at all.
“Design.” Amber helps her out. “But I studied on Lornea, not here. That fun? Law?” She pokes at her fish.
Lily looks put on the spot by the question, and reluctantly turns to Amber. From where I’m sitting, next to Eric, I can see them side by side. They couldn’t look any more different.
The Island of Dragons (Rockpools Book 4) Page 11
